


Chapter Thirty-Five: Weather Is Here; Wish You Were Beautiful

by CavalierConvoy



Series: MTMTE Series One: Shoot Straight with a Crooked Gun [36]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers Generation One, Transformers Generation Two, Transformers: Beast Machines, Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: Apologies, Bootlegging, Camaraderie, Car Chases, Friendship/Love, Gen, Heist, Other, Shore Leave, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 10:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3647652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavalierConvoy/pseuds/CavalierConvoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part Three of <i>Knights of Hedonia</i>: Sunstreaker wants in on the action; what the hell, Artemis and Trailcutter could use a blocker in their bootlegging scheme to deliver the goods back to the shuttle. And without Magnus's watchful optic, getting the contraband back on the <i>Lost Light</i> won't be an issue.</p><p>There's just one little snag: Trailcutter got himself impounded just before liftoff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chapter Thirty-Five: Weather Is Here; Wish You Were Beautiful

Well now that's just the start of a well-deserved overdue binge  
Meanwhile back in the city certain people are starting to cringe  
His lawyers are calling his parents  
His girlfriend doesn't know what to think  
His partners are studying their options  
He's just singin' and orderin' drinks  
—["Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4ZaGbZUDdk) by Jimmy Buffett, from Coconut Telegraph

  
Hedonia  
Now

“So you’re telling me they got Magnus drunk?” Sunstreaker gasped for breath. “Primus, how did they manage that?”

“Swerve made the mistake of trusting Whirl with the drink order.” Artemis fought her own grin. She had run into Sunstreaker and Bob — even Bob had an avatar, a large wolf-dog hybrid with an extra set of eyes — en route to the docks. She never asked Sunstreaker about his avatar, a thin, scraggy young man with unkempt hair and clothes; she would have expected one stylish, clean-cut, and overall dangerous-looking. But like Magnus, she figured there was a personal reason. “And then when he started coming to, they bailed, leaving Swerve with sitting him.”

“Oh, to be a Deployer on the wall for that exchange!”

“I’m a little sore I missed it, myself.” She leaned against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest. “What trouble have you been causing?”

“Raced a couple of locals, won a few chits. They haven’t learnt they can’t beat Cybertronian muscle, that’s for damn sure. Spent my winnings on a wash and detail. You?”

“Bootlegging with Trailcutter in attempt to coerce free drinks from Swerve.”

“And the two of you are on security detail. I knew there was a reason why I loved you.”

“You don’t love me; you love my fighting style.”

“It is very impressive, I must admit.”

“So where’s Bob’s shell?”

Bob looked at her upon hearing his name; Sunstreaker ruffled the wolf-dog's head. “Left him on the shuttle — figured it would be easier to stick to avatar mode. They’ve got this thing here about lifeforms of certain sentience, and Insecticons are on their absolutely-no-way-in-hell list.”

Trailcutter wandered up to them, rubbing the back of his neck with a sloppy smirk. “Got a problem, Art.”

She held up a finger. “We don't have problems; we have deviations from the plan that need to be remedies. What happened?”

He worried his bottom lip. “I…I’ve been impounded. With the nucleon.”

Artemis and Sunstreaker regarded him as though waiting for a punchline. Sunstreaker broke first, chuckling with an open grin.  
Artemis, on the other hand, frowned. “Are you all right? What happened?"

"My GPS glitched; I went the wrong way on a one way."

"And they impounded you for that?" Sunstreaker guffawed.

"No, they impounded me for the five-hundred kilos of concentrated nucleon they found in my boot."

"We have a permit for that," Artemis arched a brow, taking the datapad from her partner's grasp and bringing up the stats of the order. "They should have contacted me direct if there were any issues."

"C'mon, Art, if they let 'Cutter walk, you know they're power-playing you," Sunstreaker retorted. 

"Nobody power-plays me," she growled, pulling out her comm and scrolling through a directory. "And especially not at the expense of my best friend." She dialed a number, waited for the tone, then slipping into an angry Sirian dialect. After a terse couple of cycles, she hit the hook button. "Okay, so the Port Authority has autonomous, freelance jurisdiction with business transactions. They're hired thugs," she translated without skipping a beat. "According to the embassy, it's not unusual for them to pull this slag. First lesson with dealing with Sirians, boys: it's better to ask for permission than beg for forgiveness. And we just got permission for a counter-shakedown."

“I knew I was hanging out with you for a reason,” Sunstreaker chortled.

"Whoa!" Trailcutter held up his hands. "Couldn't we just pay the fine?"

"You're legally being held hostage, 'Cutter. This isn't a simple fine." Artemis pocketed her comm. “Okay, we’ve got — frag, three megacycles before lift-off. 'Streaker, where are you?”

"Where do you think? Parked across the street from the luxury vehicle dealership." Glancing back and forth between his two companions, both sporting exasperated expressions, Sunstreaker shrugged. "What? It's monitored, it's well-lit, and it gets a lot of traffic."

"Vanity, thy name is ...." Trailcutter muttered.

"I'm closest, then," Artemis shook her head, keeping on topic, leading the charge across the car park. All four piled into her vehicle shell, with Trailcutter in shotgun and Sunstreaker and Bob taking the back seat.

"Physical asset report," she ordered, engine revving. “I’ve got a winch, a low-yield EMP grenade rolling around in my boot that I neglected to check in at the ship, and sixty-three shanix, including the fifty I scammed off of Drift. Sunstreaker?”

“My charming good looks and a bad-aft attack Insecticon.” 

Bob wagged his tail, sticking his head out of the window. 

Artemis pulled out of the lot. "How about you, 'Cutter?”

He belched.

Sunstreaker ticked off his fingers. "Three megacycles, sixty-three shanix, an EMP grenade, a winch, charming good looks, a bad-aft attack Insecticon, and a drunk force field specialist nowhere near his force field generator because it's been impounded. This will end well.”

"We case the joint, check for weaknesses in their security, attempt to negotiate, and when negotiations break down, we break 'Cutter out. Best plan we've got right now," Artemis reported.

"Don't think I didn't catch that 'when', not 'if'," Sunstreaker pointed out, grinning.

"If! If!" Trailcutter cried. "Please, Art, I love you, but I really don't want to be on a global barred list!"

"Yeah, Skyfire used to say that the first couple of times," Artemis smirked. "Pretty bad when your getaway vehicle's the one with a conscience. Triangulate: Current position, Sunstreaker, and the impound lot."

"I take it I'm running blocker when we spring 'Cutter," Sunstreaker observed.

"If!" Trailcutter stressed as he brought up the GPS on Artemis's 'pad and programmed the route before returning it to its housing. "Primus, why do I get involved in your schemes?"

"Because you love it," Sunstreaker hissed into his ear.

"Three klicks from the spaceport in an urban environment. We're going to cut it tight, but we can do this. And yes, we're gonna need you running blocker. No worries; I've had closer calls."

"One of these sols you're gonna tell us about the Betelgeuse campaign, right?" Sunstreaker questioned.

"Proof that Wreckers and Elite Guard can work together," Trailcutter added. 

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that," Artemis grumbled, "right now we need to get you out of impound."

After fifteen clicks of silence, Sunstreaker leaned forward. "Okay, time to kill: most memorable hangover, and go!"

"You first," Artemis countered.

"That's not how you play the game, Art; ask first, answer last."

"Me, Hoist, and Grapple," Trailcutter crossed his arms over his chest. "We're fifty cycles from launch, on the mission that would bring us to Earth. By that point, we're dealing with engex that was little more than paint stripper. Call goes up, we stagger out of the barracks, onto the Ark. Ratchet catches us, gives us hell, orders us to inventory supplies after liftoff. 'Cons attack, we crash, and I wake up from stasis with a new alt mode on an alien planet and a headache to rival the storms over the Rust Plains."

"Your turn, Art," Sunstreaker prompted.

"Before or after boarding the _Lost Light_?" She demanded, flicking her gaze to the avatar running shotgun.

"Pfft. Everyone knows how you two lushes met," Sunstreaker appended. "Let's go before."

"Keep in mind this was before slag got real, before the War. Functionists were creeping in everywhere, quietly. Thundercracker was in my PoliSci class, and through him, I met the likes of Skyfire and Octane. And Skywarp, who got the brilliant idea of challenging his brother's Iacon-forged classmate to shots on the night before dorm inspection, set for nine-hundred. So here I am, half-past-seven, nursing a stout to fight off a raging headache and staring down at a passed-out Vosian Seeker whose not supposed to be there. I need to get him out of my dorm ASAP. At eight-hundred sharp, there's a knock at my door. Ditch the stout, stagger to the door, and now I'm wondering what drugs I took the night before, because I'm hallucinating Dominus Ambus on my doorstep. Turns out, nope, it's not him, but his nowhere-near-as-famous little brother, who's in the advanced placement accounting program — my math tutor, he tells me. 'I'm way too slottin' hungover to think about accounting,' I tell him, 'but while you're here, you can help me drag this body out to the courtyard.' The look of horror on his face is forever burned in my memory."

"Your turn, 'Streaker," Trailcutter reminded.

"Mine's nowhere as entertaining as yours," he shrugged. "But you could say that I'm still reeling from the effects — hey, is that the impound lot?" 

"Yep, so it is," Artemis leaned over the centre console to peer through the passenger window as they drove past.

Sunstreaker pulled Bob away from the back window to get a better view of the lot. “Automated systems, one guard patrolling, chain link fence, nothing supporting any weapons-based alarms. For impounding a vehicle carrying high-test fuel, seems rather light, security-wise.”

"Yep, they have no clue who they're dealing with. Expecting us to pay the 'fine' and walk away." Artemis sat up, drumming her fingers against the steering wheel. 

"Can I ask why it's a bad idea that we just pay it and walk away with the city still intact?" Trailcutter asked.

"Principle of the matter," Sunstreaker clapped his shoulder. "Not that you're not worth whatever they're asking for, mind."

"No one gets away with holding my friends hostage," Artemis snarled.

"Besides, what if they ask for more than what we have?" Sunstreaker continued. "I'm currently broke."

"Because you spent it all on detailing," Artemis countered. 

"You're just jealous because I'm prettier than you," Sunstreaker bantered. "So we'll go in and 'negotiate'." 

"The two of you 'negotiating' anything is what's bothering me," Trailcutter grumbled.

“Oi, Fort Max fanboy! You're the only one with on-board weapons," Artemis reminded. "Streaker and I had to check ours in the shuttle."

"Oh, the irony!" the scrawny avatar lamented.

"So here's the plan. Me and Sunstreaker — " she paused out of habit; neither of her companions took the bait " — will go 'negotiate' the fine. 'Cutter, you wait for the signal to winch up the fence and disengage your avatar; I'll take it from there. But only when — if — negotiations fail. We gotta time this perfectly, which means we need a canary ... Artemis to Whirl!”

A shrill static emitted from her speakers before the ex-Wrecker’s voice broke through. _“Yeah, boss?”_

“Let us know when you start boarding the shuttle. We gotta pick up a delivery.”

A pause. _“You got it, boss.”_

Once the communication ended, Trailcutter voiced his protest. “What the hell? He’s going to wait until last possible moment to tell us!”

“That’s the idea,” Artemis nodded, leaving her engine idling. “As I said, he’s our canary. If the fine doesn’t work, we disengage avatars and get the frag out of here. We can’t risk the shuttle being held up to search for us, which is why Whirl being Whirl will let us know only when everyone’s on board and the ship is just ready to lift off and not before—”

“—Because he’s the type of gashole who’d want to see a spectacular escape!” Sunstreaker filled in.

Trailcutter’s frown broke into a wide grin. “Art, that's brilliant! So what’s the signal?”

All three human avatars looked at Bob. He stopped panting, cocking his head with a quizzical whine. "If Bob leads, winch it up," Artemis ordered.

 

*

 

It was the set up for a joke: two humans and a large canine with too many eyes walk into an impound lot with sixty-three shanix and twelve cycles to get their friend’s vehicle out of hock.

The bored guard looked up at Artemis. “Impound fine is one hundred shanix and a background check.”

"I've got sixty-three shanix and a contact at the Sirian embassy willing to nix your interference in our business transaction from  the record," Artemis countered, “And seeing that you released our associate without question, whatever he did wasn’t serious enough to warrant a background check on him, otherwise you'd've known who you were dealing with. So why not take our offer and call it good?”

“Problem is, your friend’s vehicle is sporting a Cybertronian symbol,” the guard rebutted. “Which means one of two things: you have more than sixty-three shanix if you’re able to buy a Cybertron-built transtector, or your friend is stupid enough to partner up with a Cybertronian, which means we might have a diplomatic issue on our hands, seeing the current state of Sirian-stroke-Cybertronian-stroke-Earthian relations.”

 _The frag was he talking about?_ She did not voice that, but instead flashed her stone-sober grin. She had hoped not to dip into her reserves, but they were running out of time. “Fine. One hundred shanix.”

The guard pulled out a datapad and a stylus. “Sorry, gotta do this by the book.”

Sunstreaker fought the urge to chuckle as Artemis squared her shoulders. Pressing both hands against the surface of the desk, she leaned forward. “One-fifty, and call it a day.”

“Five-hundred.”

The guard got greedy: mistake. Artemis’s grin metamorphosed, splitting with a glint. “Two-hundred, and no one will have to ask why you needed stitches.”

Threat mode. Sunstreaker bristled with anticipation, balling his fists at his side. Bob, reacting to his master's stance, arched his back and growled, baring teeth.

The guard rose to the challenge, but Artemis beat him to the next line. “You said so yourself, there’s only two reasons why our friend sports a Cybertronian symbol. Fortunately for you, that symbol’s Autobot, which means you’ll live to see tomorrow. On the flip side, there’s only one type of Autobot who would come to a resort town with a black market for weapons and fuel. And they tend to travel in packs.” She leaned close, next to the guard’s ear: “Wreck and rule.”

He fell back in his seat and scrambled to put the ‘pad away. “Two-hundred sounds very reasonable, sir.”

She slid two medium-sized coins across the surface of the desk before turning to leave. “I knew we could come to an agreement.”

Sunstreaker followed her, to her right flank, and snapped his fingers, beckoning Bob. Once they left, he let his disappointment be known. “That was anticlimactic.”

“I don’t know how much damage holomatter can withstand, and I didn’t want to find out with little time on the clock. So now —”

 _“Hey, boss, better get your afts in gear!”_ Whirl hailed, fighting a giggle.

“Gashole!” she snapped, breaking into a run. "'Streaker, signal!"

Sunstreaker snapped his fingers and pointed forward, and Bob broke formation, taking point. Trailcutter, who had been leaning up against Artemis's fender, belied his size and moved quickly, snapping the winch in place, a test tug, before disengaging his avatar.

“Bob, home!” Sunstreaker ordered, following suit, as Bob, picking the hint, did the same. Within ten clicks, the roar of a performance engine screamed, and Sunstreaker, in vehicular mode, shot past. 

With a thought, Artemis cut the power to hers, her consciousness slamming back into her physical being. Popping her clutch, she left a patch of rubber on the tarmac, the winch line pulling taut. The fence offered no resistance; once the section pulled away, she unlatched the hook and reeled the cable tight. Checking her five, Trailcutter closed the gap and gave more gas.

“Pedal to the metal, 'Cutter! Let’s go!” she shouted, feeling her tyres slip on a tight corner in pursuit of the yellow supercar.

Trailcutter had other ideas: true to his name, he crashed through the median divider and continued into the airfield. Rather than fight traffic, Artemis braked hard, swinging her back end around and followed him through the opening, scattering broken tarmac and sod in her wake.

Sunstreaker drifted into a spin, smoke billowing from his tyres, and double-backed, around the corner, gained ground behind them with a curse as he hit the airfield. “Can’t you go any faster, 'Breaker?” he snapped; now free of traffic limitations, Sunstreaker darted past the larger vehicles and onto the ramp.

Artemis pulled up next to Trailcutter, keeping pace. “Almost there, bro! We can do it!” They hit the docking ramp together just as it rose, the shuttle beginning to taxi. Transforming in tandem, Artemis and Trailcutter tumbled in a heap of tangled limbs against the far bulkhead, just avoiding Sunstreaker and drawing a crowd in the process. 

Proximity alerts were sounding in her head; she quelled them, taking her time to assess the situation. She was having a difficult time separating the debriefing of her scheme and the fact her best friend was lying on top of her with his arm pinned underneath her back and faces centimetres apart. "You okay, bro?" she questioned, meeting his sunset red-gold optics. Visor. She could make out optics behind the glazing. 

"Nothing damaged save my pride," he reported, his breath carrying whiffs of stout and whisky. "You?"

"Same." She mentally catalogued their limbs for the best way to dislodge — 

“It’s a miracle 'Cutter didn’t explode with the impact,” Sunstreaker groused, making no move to help his cohorts and instead picked out sod from his tyre mount. "Probably should get that slag unloaded, don't you think?"

The spell broken, Trailcutter pushed himself away, scrambling to his feet. Artemis sat up, taking a moment to recalibrate, before shouting, “Cutting it close, Whirl!”

“But that was epic!” Whirl protested, grabbing Rewind and shaking the smaller ‘Bot by the shoulders. “We got it all, didn’t we, Squirt?”

“What do you mean, ‘we?’” Rewind protested.

Trailcutter pushed past Whirl with a careful gait. “Why can’t we just have quiet drink-till-you-fall-face-down outings?” he demanded, directing his complaint to Artemis. “I don’t know how I let you talk me into this.”

“The infallible Artemis Prime with dissension in the ranks,” Sunstreaker cackled.

“Thanks for the assist, and as much as I appreciated it, shut the frag up,” Artemis warned, rising to her feet. 

“You’ll like this, Whirl,” Sunstreaker draped an arm around Artemis’s shoulders. “So we’re getting 'Cutter out of hock, and this crazy glitch gets her Wrecker up on the guard — it was insane!”

“I let him assume we were Wreckers, that’s all,” Artemis corrected, shrugging away from his grasp. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to patch up a situation.” Catching up to Trailcutter, she reached out to take his arm, but fell short as her fingers struck his forcefield. "Oi, I'm sorry about the close call — "

His gaze was downcast. "No, it's okay." He sighed. "I wasn't thinking — "

"I mean it." She darted ahead of him, reaching out to place hands on either side of his helm; this time she made contact, forcing him to look her in the optic. "That was too close. Too selfish of me. And I literally could have lost my best friend in the process."

"It wasn't weapons-grade," he pointed out. "Not as volatile in consumption state. It's okay, Art." He clapped her shoulder and meandered to the hold. Rather than go after him, she stayed rooted to her spot, watching him depart.

"No," she frowned, "it's not." 

NEXT CHAPTER:   
_Shoot Straight with a Crooked Gun:_ Dissident Aggressor  
_Knights of Hedonia:_ Kiss Me, I'm Slagfaced

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter had a working title (Originally "Say When", which I used for a chapter of "The Stars at Mortal Wars", then "Bedlam Boys", which also ended up in "Stars") before I doodled an idea involving Hunter!Sunstreaker taking a selfie with Dog!Bob, with 'Cutter and Artemis (their costume designs were similar to Cletus and Beau, respectively, from the first "Smokey and the Bandit") loading boxes into their vehicle forms, with the inscription to Sideswipe: "Dear bro: Weather is here, wish you were beautiful!"). It barely got out of stick figure form, and maybe I'll revisit it again when I finish the first arc.


End file.
